Sunday, June 07, 2015

Breaking: Erdogan's AKP loses parliamentary majority

Given that this is Turkey and that we're talking about President Hussein Obama's Best Friend Forever, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, I suppose that we have to consider the possibility that today's election results will not be honored. Nevertheless, it is significant that in a special election in Turkey that was marred by violence and fraud - both of which may have been perpetrated by Erdogan's AKP - the AKP has lost its parliamentary majority.

The election results represented a significant setback to Mr. Erdogan,
an Islamist who has steadily increased his power as president, a partly
but not solely ceremonial post, after more than a decade as prime
minister, and indicated that Mr. Erdogan’s efforts to accumulate power
had run aground. And it was a significant victory to the cadre of Kurds,
liberals and secular Turks who found their voice of opposition to Mr.
Erdogan during sweeping antigovernment protests two years ago.

Mr. Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, or A.K.P., still won by far
the most seats in Parliament, but not a majority, according to
preliminary results released Sunday night. The outcome suggested
contentious days of jockeying ahead as the party moves to form a
coalition government. Already, analysts were raising the possibility
Sunday of new elections if a government cannot be formed swiftly. Many
Turks were happy to see Mr. Erdogan’s powers curtailed, even though the
prospect of a coalition government evokes dark memories of political
instability and economic malaise during the 1990s.

With
99 percent of the votes counted, the A.K.P. had won 41 percent of the
vote, according to TRT, a state-run broadcaster, down from nearly 50
percent during the last national election in 2011. The percentage gave
it an estimated 259 seats in Turkey’s Parliament, compared with the 327 seats it has now.

“The
outcome is an end to Erdogan’s presidential ambitions,” said Soner
Cagaptay, an expert on Turkey and a fellow at the Washington Institute
for Near East Policy.

Almost
immediately, the results raised questions about the political future of
Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, who moved to that position from that of
foreign minister last year and was seen as a loyal subordinate of Mr.
Erdogan. Mr. Davutoglu, who during the campaign vowed to resign if the
A.K.P. did not win a majority, told reporters on Sunday evening in brief
comments, “whatever the people decide is for the best.” Mr. Davutoglu
was due to speak later in the evening in Ankara.

Mr.
Erdogan, who as president was not on the ballot Sunday, will probably
remain Turkey’s dominant political figure even if his powers have been
rolled back, given his outsized personality and his still-deep well of
support among Turkey’s religious conservatives, who form the backbone of
his constituency. But even among those supporters, including ones in
Kasimpasa, the Istanbul neighborhood where Mr. Erdogan spent part of his
youth, there are signs that his popularity is flagging, partly because
of his push for more powers over the judiciary and his crackdown on any
form of criticism, including prosecutions of those who insult him on
social media.

...

The election turned on the historic performance at the ballot box of
Turkey’s Kurdish minority, which aligned with liberals and secular Turks
opposed to Mr. Erdogan’s leadership to win almost 13 percent of the
vote, passing a 10 percent legal threshold and earning representation in
Parliament. The People’s Democratic Party, a largely Kurdish bloc known
as H.D.P., was able to broaden its base by fielding a slate of
candidates that included women, gays and other minorities and appealed
to voters whose goal was to curtail Mr. Erdogan’s powers.

...

The performance positioned the Kurds as kingmakers in the next
Parliament, and highlighted the evolution of the Kurdish movement, from
the battlefields of the southeast, where a bloody insurgency raged for
nearly 30 years, to the halls of power in Ankara, the capital.

...

“Erdogan’s salvos over the past week show how nervous he is about the
outcome of this election,” said Ugur Kaplan, 24, a student who voted in
Istanbul. “The A.K.P. has lost votes, and it’s because of him. People
are tired of having their lives dictated by one nutty man. It’s time for
change.”

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I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com